Dr. Michael Gavin, Delta College’s fifth president, grew up on the north side of Chicago, where his classrooms and sports teams were diverse until the eighth grade. In high school, he began to notice change.
“By the time I got to high school, I was in honors and AP classes, where my African American and Hispanic friends were, for lack of a better way to put it, tracked into regular or remedial classes,” says Gavin in an interview with Diverse. “I didn’t have the words for it then, but I could see how education was reproducing social oppression, racial oppression, and economic oppression.”
Since witnessing this, Gavin has spent his career working towards reducing inequities for historically marginalized students. “And that’s carried me all the way to this presidency,” he adds. 
Dr. Michael Gavin
Delta College is a two-year public community college in University Center, Michigan. What makes the institution unique is its critical focus on social justice.
“I mean, the mission is very clear,” says Gavin. “You’ve heard this a million times, but Higher Ed is marginalizing the same people over and over again, so you have to disrupt the system.”
Gavin, who is in his fourth year as president at Delta, received his doctorate in American studies from the University of Maryland, College Park, his master’s degree in literature from American University, and a bachelor’s degree in literature from Dickinson College.
Before serving at Delta, Gavin worked at Prince George’s Community College for 13 years and Anne Arundel College for seven years, both located in Maryland.
